Gordon Hall, The Founder of Rockstar Leeds, has Passed Away

It’s been reported that the founder of Rockstar Leeds Gordon Hall has passed away at the age of 51.

Möbius Entertainment was first founded by Gordon Hall, Jason McGannm, Dave Box, and Ian J. Bowden in 1997. The studios first release was Alfred’s Adventure, a remake of Alfred Chicken for the Game Boy Color. This began their foray into handheld gaming, leading to future titles such as High Heat Major League Baseball and Army Men: Turf Wars.

They continued to adapt games to the Gameboy Advance handheld system, from Bionicle to Barbie Horse Adventures: Ribbon Race, and only grew when they acquired Spellbound. The studio however came to an end in 2004, with a Game Boy Advance version of Max Payne and A Sound of Thunder being their last games. This was due to Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games, buying Möbius Entertainment and rebranding them as Rockstar Leeds.

The newly branded studio continued much of the work the previous iteration had, working with mainly handheld games and ports. They were the studio responsible for first bringing the Grand Theft Auto franchise to portable systems. Their first game was Midnight Club 3 for the PSP and a new Grand Theft Auto set in Liberty City. These were followed by Vice City Stories and Chinatown Wars, which were received very well by critics and gamers alike.

Rockstar’s co-founder Sam Houser said that Möbius Entertainment’s work on Max Payne was so impressive that they wanted the team to become a part of their organization. Once the acquisition went through, later in 2009, Gordon Hall moved to Rockstar San Diego to help with Red Dead Redemption. In 2011, he started to research the psychology behind microtransactions which led him towards a new career as Activision Blizzard Mobile’s Chief Creative Officer, another portable focused role.

The players nor the industry will forget the impact Gordon Hall has had in the portable gaming sphere. Our condolences are with his family and friends during this time. While he may have passed, his work will live on to entertain future generations.